The Christmas season is upon us, so I thought I would share my vegan christmas dinner recipe which I made last year. It’s so delicious I’m going to make it again this year! This tasty vegan christmas dinner consists of Quinoa Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms & Roasted Root Vegetables with my Raw Chocolate Brownie and Banana & Cashew Ice Cream for dessert!

Serves 2

Ingredients

2 Carrots

2 Sweet potatoes

8 Brussels sprouts

1 Red onion

2 Garlic cloves

2tbsp Rapeseed oil

4 Portobello mushrooms

100g Quinoa

50g Walnuts

1tbsp Thyme

1/2tsp Himalayan pink crystal salt

1/2tsp Black pepper

Instructions

Preheat the fan oven to 200C.

Wash the vegetables. Cut the ends off of the carrots and sweet potatoes and slice them lengthways, arranging them in layers in a baking dish. Cut the Brussels sprouts in half and add to the baking dish with the sliced red onion. Place in the peeled garlic cloves cut into quarters. Drizzle over the rapeseed oil.

Place the baking dish in the hot oven for 30 minutes.

While the vegetables are cooking, prepare the stuffed portobello mushrooms. Firstly weigh out the quinoa and and place in a pan of hot water. Bring to the boil, then simmer for 12 minutes. When the quinoa has absorbed most of the water, add in the chopped walnuts. Season with the thyme, salt and black pepper and mix in well.

Cut the stems out of the portobello mushrooms. Now spoon the quinoa mixture into the portobello mushrooms.

After the 30 minutes, remove the baking dish from the oven and carefully place the 4 stuffed portobello mushrooms on top of the roasted vegetables. Return to the oven for 15 minutes.

Your chakras are seven energy centres which govern certain areas of your body. When they are open and spinning at at the right speed, we have vibrant health and all areas of our life work well. When they are closed or underactive, we get illnesses and problems in areas of our life such as finances, relationships, self-esteem etc.

The root chakra governs survival and security in the world. It relates to basis survival needs such as food, water, shelter, feeling safe and supported in a community and finances. It spins at a slow, steady rate and is located between the legs in the genital area. It is red in colour.

A lot of illnesses stem from an underactive root chakra such as fatigue, anorexia, malnutrition or inability to deal with stress from not giving your body enough energy in the form of calories and protein. Lack of protein can cause skin problems, depleted immune system and anaemia. Also obesity is a root chakra issue from being so out of touch with your body and it’s signals that you overeat. Men with root issues have sex organ problems.

Get enough calories – I use the dietary analysis software myfitnesspal.com to monitor my calorie intake to ensure I reach my 2000kcal per day and give my body all the resources it needs to function optimally.

Get enough calcium for your bones and muscles from dairy, kale, broccoli and chickpeas and iron from meat and green vegetables for your blood.

I have always wanted to have a vegetable patch to grow my own organic vegetables! Here is the process of building the vegetable box, planting some small plants and seeds and the joy of watching them grow in the glorious sunshine we have been having lately!

The box is built. Now we filled it with some rich fertiliser on the bottom layer and some top soil for the top layer.

We added a ring of copper plating around the upper inside of the box which the slugs can’t grip to to prevent the slugs from getting in and eating the leaves. No need for artificial pesticides!

I planted the sweet potato plant I had been growing on the kitchen window sill from half a sweet potato in the top left hand corner of the box, and the small mung bean plants in the bottom right hand corner, grown from some old mung beans that I had in the cupboard and just scattered over a planter tray containing nutrient rich soil! I also planted a row of some old carrot seeds I found in the drawer in the back right and some chive bulbs planted in front of the sweet potato plant that were left from last year.

Also I planted a couple of medjool date seeds, hemp seeds and broccoli seeds! Will be interesting to see if they sprout!

We also put a scaredy cat plant next to box which gives off a smell that repels cat when they touch it, so the numerous cats in our neighbourhood wouldn’t use it as a litter box!

The plants are getting very big! The sweet potato plant with the heart-shaped leaves has grown so tall and is winding around the bamboo sticks like ivy! Nearby are the chive plants. As you see we added a curly-leaved parsley plant which is doing really well in the sunshine, and tastes delicious. The mung bean plants have overtaken the vegetable box! You can just see the row of carrot leaves in the back row which are growing very quickly in the glorious sunshine!

I can’t wait to be able to pick my own sweet potatoes to bake for lunch! And I’m already using the parsley in my Quinoa & Lentil Burgers and will eventually use the carrots to make Carrot & Coriander Soup when they get big enough in the autumn!

It’s so convenient just to pop out into the garden to get your herbs and vegetables.